


The Very Happiest Place on Earth

by Aris Merquoni (ArisTGD)



Category: Adam Adamant Lives!
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 00:53:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2793812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArisTGD/pseuds/Aris%20Merquoni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam, Georgie, and Simms are on holiday, but will Adam's desire for a quiet day ever be fulfilled?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Very Happiest Place on Earth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nemo_the_Everbeing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemo_the_Everbeing/gifts).



Georgie went to the window of her hotel room and opened the curtains wide, looking down into the California sunshine at the broad, flat boulevards and the green nodding heads of the palm trees below. Then she skipped to the doors separating her rooms from Adam's. "Oooh, it looks lovely out there," she said, ducking through without bothering to knock. "You'll be able to get in some sunbathing, it's sunshine for miles."

Adam Llewellyn de Vere Adamant looked up from his suitcase and frowned at her. "We're not here for frivolity, Miss Jones. The doctor who invited me here--"

"Isn't going to be meeting us for another day," Georgie pointed out. "We've got all the time in the world. And we can't come to California without taking a holiday."

"Actually, I do have some plans in mind," Adam said. Simms crossed the room with Adam's shoes and started laying them out in the closet. "The Huntington, as a matter of fact."

Georgie felt her face squinching up in confusion. "The what?"

"The Huntington Library and Gardens," Adam reiterated. "I met Mr. Huntington when he was on a brief stay in London. He always talked of bequeathing a library, and now I see he has done. I was planning on making a visit."

Georgie scowled and turned to Simms. "Simms, you can't want to spend your days cooped up in a library, can you?"

"Mmm, I had been thinking of visiting the Cabaret of Magic," Simms said, "Except that their star attraction The Great Santini stopped performing after being arrested for murder. Very shocking."

"I don't believe you two." Georgie crossed her arms and slumped down in a chair. "We're in Los Angeles, California, it's beautiful outside, and if we don't go to Disneyland I'm going to throw a tantrum."

Adam frowned at her. "Disneyland?"

* * *

Georgie wasn't entirely sure how she got her way, but in the end they all packed into a rental car which Adam handled with aplomb down the highways to the amusement park. In what felt like minutes they were past the gates with a thousand other people, sauntering down a charming American street clutching their ticket books and blinking in the bustle and the sunshine.

"All right," Georgie said, flipping open her guidebook and taking charge. "What do we want to do first?"

"I must confess to being a bit overwhelmed, Miss Jones," Adam said, rubbing at his eyebrow and looking around at the crowds. "What do you suggest?"

"Well, how many E tickets do we have?" she said, opening her ticket book. "Those are the best rides. Oh, look, they have concerts all day today, and a parade! We have to go to that."

"Yes," Adam said, sounding distracted. "I say... what are these strange apparitions I'm seeing?"

Georgie looked up and followed the line of Adam's gaze, and couldn't stop herself from giggling. "They're just costumes. They're characters from the movies."

"Movies?" Adam's expression was turning from a frown into slightly more perturbed scowl. "You mean there are films about people dressed in such a fashion?"

"No, silly, they're animated," Georgie said. She turned to Simms with a mock scowl. "Simms, are you telling me you've never shown Mr. Adamant a Disney movie?"

"Mr. Adamant like myself finds the television a repulsive instrument of distraction," Simms said with mock-stiffness. "And when he has requested tickets to the cinema, the subject matter has been a trifle more elevated than 'Sleeping Beauty' or 'Song of the South.'"

Georgie sighed and turned back to Adam, who was starting to smile at her. "'Animated', Miss Jones?" he asked. "They appear to be moving a bit sluggishly to me, but perhaps that's the heat."

"Animated drawings," she explained. "Like cartoons."

"Ah," he said, understanding blossoming. "Like in a kinetiscope."

"Precisely," she said, much more surely than she felt. "So they have people at the park dressed up as the characters. For people to take photos with. For mementos." That was possibly one more layer of explanation than she needed, but she wasn't taking any more chances.

"Well, I don't believe I need a memento, I'm sure the experience will be quite stimulating enough," Adam said. He peered down at his guidebook. "I say, I don't think I recognize any of these rides. It's all quite baffling. Ah--" he smiled. "'King Arthur's Carrousel'. That should be safe, at least."

"All right," Georgie said, happy to have some direction. "The carousel first. Oh," she said, a sudden thought gripping her, "Let's agree that if we get separated, we'll meet at the main gate at seven. All right?"

"A sensible precaution," Adam said. "Seven o'clock it is."

* * *

Adam seemed to enjoy his turn on the carousel well enough, but declined a second turn. He went off to investigate something in one of the shops, and when Georgie and Simms turned around he was gone.

"Oh, isn't that just like him--" Georgie said.

"I wouldn't worry, miss," Simms said, "He's probably just popped 'round to investigate something. He'll be back in a tick."

Adam wasn't back in a tick. He wasn't back in another complete run of the carousel, making Georgie wish she'd spent another ticket to have another go instead of waiting.

"Well," she said, when Adam appeared nowhere in evidence, "We'll meet him at the gates at seven?"

Simms gave her a long look, then sighed. "I suppose it would be a waste of our day at the park to stay here waiting for him," he allowed.

"And the money we've spent already," she said, "And our tickets."

Simms looked at her a moment more, then stuck out his elbow. Georgie grinned and took his arm, and they strolled down the brightly-paved avenue of Fantasyland.

"What did you have in mind for your next adventure?" Simms asked.

"The Matterhorn," she said firmly. "And then the submarines, though I hope we've found Adam by then."

"Trying to get all the E-tickets in at once, mm?"

"Well if we don't see Pirates of the Caribbean I think it's a wasted day at the park." Georgie said, as they turned around the shops and toward the Matterhorn. A security guard moving at a swift clip the other way bumped her shoulder, and she staggered slightly. "Hey!"

"Very sorry, ma'am," he said, stepping back and looking to see if she was all right. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, thanks," she said. "Look where you're going."

"Of course," he said, nodding slightly, and then hurrying around them toward the entrance to the park.

Georgie frowned after him. "What's his hurry?"

"Mmm, make sure to check your wallet and watch," Simms suggested.

She quickly patted herself down, but found everything in place. "Nope, not a pickpocket. Everything's there."

"All right, then." Simms sent one last frowning look at the security guard, then she took his arm again and led him to the line for the Matterhorn.

* * *

After the bobsleds, Georgie decided to take a last look around Fantasyland looking for Adam, then demanded they take the sky train to Tomorrowland for the next ride.

Looking down they were still unable to see Adam. His usually striking personal style was lost in a sea of merrymakers and flamboyant costumes. Georgie shrugged and checked her watch. They had a few hours, and they would probably bump into him during the day.

Crammed into a little gray submarine and looking through a curtain of bubbles may not have been as thrilling as the bobsleds, but the voyage certainly was fantastic. She came out of "America Sings" a little disappointed and more than a little concerned about missing Adam.

"Where could he have got to?" she complained to Simms as she watched security guards push through the crowd and head toward Fantasyland.

"Mmm, I couldn't say," Simms said. "Shall we continue on?"

"I suppose so," Georgie said, looking at her map.

"Shall we to Adventureland?" Simms suggested. "In this heat I quite fancy a Jungle Cruise."

The cruise offered plenty of foreign fauna, but Adam was still nowhere in evidence. Georgie opted to skip the Tiki Room and dragged Simms off to Frontierland instead.

"We have to take the steamboats," Georgie said, her excitement in the rides rekindled.

"After the last trip?" Simms asked. "You seem determined to continue risking our lives by boat, my dear."

"Oh, come on!" she crowed, pulling him to the dock.

Georgie immediately went all the way up to the top deck to look over the river and the crowds on the shore. No Adam, so she turned her face to the wind in glee as they headed into the ride.

"Haunted Mansion," Georgie announced when they got back on shore. "We saw it from the tour, we have to go there."

"Now where are those security guards going?" Simms said instead of answering her. "That's funny, isn't it?"

Georgie frowned and followed his gaze. "They all seem to be heading to the front of the park."

Simms gave her a look.

"Adam," she sighed.

"It does seem likely that any major disturbance would involve Mr. Adamant," he sighed.

"Come on," she said. "Let's wrap this up and then go back to the rides."

They found Adam back in the center of Disneyland, at the plaza in the center of Main Street, at the big roundabout in the center, a dozen security guards ringing him and a scruffy-looking man and woman. Adam had his sword out of its stick and the other two had some kind of batons, and tourists were milling around snapping photographs, murmuring and unsure if this was some kind of attraction.

"Bad enough that you turned your foul machinations on me," Adam was proclaiming, "But to threaten the lives of innocent children in one of the happiest places on Earth--"

"That's, uh, The Happiest Place on Earth, sir," one of the security guards said.

Adam gave the man a quick look. "Thank you, my good man," he said. "Innocent children. Have you no shame?"

The man Adam had cornered drew himself up to his full height. "You still haven't stopped us, Adamant! The subliminal hypnotic suggestions are being put into the park's public address system as we speak! And with one switch of this control--" he raised his baton-like thing, "The minds of the people of the park will be mine!"

"Don't you dare--" Adam shouted, but the man raised his stick and pressed his thumb to it, and the music of Main Street was cut short with a squeal, to be replaced with a strange buzzing noise.

Georgie clapped her hands to her ears, but the sound was digging into her brain, making her feel the command by the strange man to seize Adam Adamant and make sure he couldn't interfere was terribly sensible. She was moving her hands to help the security guards do just that when something in her rebelled. She put her hands back over her ears and tried to think of something, anything, to block out that noise.

She bellowed at the top of her lungs, "IT'S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL! IT'S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL!"

Simms heard her, and joined in on the next line, "IT'S A SMALL, SMALL, WORLD!"

The security guards looked slightly shaken, but the singing seemed to be snapping them out of it. One by one they turned away from trying to grab Adam and started joining in. "It's a small world after all... its a small world after all..." Some of them were slightly more tuneful than others, but by the third "It's a small, small world," the entire lot of tourists and security in Main Street, USA, were singing along and drowning out the buzzing hypnotic suggestion. Everyone was singing, in fact, except for the two people Adam had been fighting and Adam himself, who gave the man a right cross to the jaw, then switched off the sound system.

The bandstand music came flooding back, and the tourists gave a spontaneous cheer.

Adam handed the control stick and the two villains over to the security team, then came over to Simms and Georgie with a smile on his face. "That was very clever," he admitted.

"Thank you," she said. "Of course, you vanished before we could all go on the Small World ride, but we still have enough tickets--"

"That was enough excitement for one day, I think," Adam demurred.

"You should have brought us along," Georgie said. "Simms and I looked for you for hours, didn't we?"

"Mmm, we were looking, sir, you had us a bit worried," Simms said. "Of course, it is difficult to see most of the pedestrian walkways from a boat tour." He gave Georgie a dour look and she stuck her tongue out at him.

"Well, I'm glad you had a good time," Adam said. "But I think it's time we were--"

"Excuse me, sir," a thin man in a grey suit said, coming toward them at a good clip and waving to get their attention. "Pardon me, but I'd like to just say, thank you so much for finding those two and drawing them into the open, Mr, ah..."

"Adamant," Adam introduced himself. "Adam Adamant, and you are..?"

"George Johnson, assistant hospitality manager for the Park. I just wanted to tell you how grateful we are for you and your friends' help, and wanted to say if there's anything we at Disneyland can do for you to thank you for your work--"

"Well," Georgie said.

"Thank you," Adam cut her off, "But service is in many ways its own reward."

"Well, Mr. Adamant," Mr. Johnson said, "The least we can do is give you complementary passes to the park and as many tickets to any of the rides you would like for you and your friends."

"Thank you," Adam said again, sounding more strained this time, "But my friends and I had other plans for our stay--"

"Oh, Adam," Georgie said, reaching out to shake Mr. Johnson's hand, "We can't say no to this fine gentleman, and besides, you haven't really been on any of the rides yet!"

"I managed to be under and on top of several of them this afternoon," Adam said.

"Oh, but you haven't got the whole Disney experience! We'll take a dozen E-tickets each," Georgie said, "And a prime spot at the parade."

"You got it, miss," Mr. Johnson said.

Adam's look had curdled, slightly. Georgie grinned at him. "Well, there's lots of daylight left, and we still haven't seen Pirates of the Caribbean or the Haunted Mansion yet. Come on, Mr. Adamant!"

After a long moment, Adam sighed and relented. "I do recall seeing a glimpse of some sort of show with singing puppets while I was jammed in a crawl space," he said. "It wasn't promising, but it seemed harmless enough."

"That's the spirit," Georgie said as Mr. Johnson took a bundle of pass booklets from a young man who had come back out of breath after running from the ticket office and handed them over. "Thank you very much. Oooh, look at all these tickets!"

"I fear we won't have time to see the Huntington Library today," Adam said regretfully. He looked around at the crowds of tourists, dispersing slowly now the excitement was over, and listened to the wafting music and chatter, and seemed to decide to enjoy himself. "Oh, well. Perhaps another time."

"And if we miss any rides," Georgie warned him, taking one of his arms and one of Simms', "We're just going to have to come back tomorrow."

"Heaven forfend, Miss Jones," Simms said. "Isn't three river and lagoon journeys enough for you?"

"Never," she said.

Simms sighed and rolled his eyes heavenward. "There once was a young girl from East Frimsey  
Who had too much love for things Disney  
On a ride quite dramatic  
Came a sight all traumatic  
When the straps holding her in were too flimsy."

Georgie squeezed Simms' hand and grinned. "I'll make you go on the It's a Small World ride with me," she promised warningly. "Twice."


End file.
